Non-WP hosted site's inclusion into WP Community?

I noticed on the frontpage of wordpress.com, that "I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER"? has the top blog. I also noticed that this blog has its own domain and is hosting ads. I can only assume from the docs I have read that this site is not being hosted by wp.com.

My question then is, how is this site included in the "Today’s Hot Blogs" list?

I ask this as I am new to this whole blogging thing and I plan on hosting my own site (with ads) but would like to have my blog featured somewhere amidst the rest of the WP blogs.

Why would it suck? Advertising is a business and so is VIP hosting. And Top Blogs is in its own way a market-based thing, with clicks being the market. They're at the top with a half-million hits a day, fair and square. Beat that and you beat them.

I ask this as I am new to this whole blogging thing and I plan on hosting my own site (with ads) but would like to have my blog featured somewhere amidst the rest of the WP blogs.

Below is the true cost of self-hosting and monetizing your free blog template from wordpress.org:

(1) When you host your own blog it will no longer be entitled to be "featured" amidst the rest of the wp.com blogs because wordpress.com will no longer be hosting it.

(2) That means the benefits of having your blog posts appear in the WordPress.com Category tag pages and being considered and promoted among WordPress.com Top Posts, Top Blog or Growing Blogs will apply not to your blog because wordpress.com will no longer be hosting it.

(3) Consequently, our blog will lose the traffic that is generated by having a blog hosted by wordpress.com.